[mft_]

That's an interestingly hard line to take.

The game in question --the penny pusher-- pits a player's skill against the (the design of the) game, and (probably) allows a skillful player to earn a greater return. The game is inherently designed to restrict winnings, and (so goes urban legend) the owners can restrict winnings further by, for example, gluing coins to the base in certain areas.

I'd therefore argue that exploiting gaps or flaws in the game's design are just an example of a especially skillful operator beating the game and its designers, and not cheating. The line between clever exploitation and outright theft is a probably difficult one to draw; although turning up with a giant electromagnet which just pulled the coins straight off the shelf, would probably be over that line :)